'IT majors' dominance in high-end server mkt threat to growth'
Press Trust of India / New Delhi Mar 11, 2010, 19:48 IST
The dominance of foreign technology giants like IBM in the Indian high-end 'mainframe' server market is detrimental to the growth of the country, economic thinktank ICRIER said today.
"High-end servers such as mainframes are very crucial for India's IT needs for developmental programmes and monopolistic practices of dominant enterprises in this sector are detrimental to growth," Rajat Kathuria of ICRIER told reporters here.
"High-end computer market is dominated by IBM (50 per cent market share), HP (33 per cent) and Sun (17 per cent). During the MRTPC days, this would have been sufficient to launch investigations against IBM because of its size," Kathuria added.
IBM's comment on the ICRIER's report, titled 'The Issues of Competition in Mainframe and Associated Services in India' which was launched today, is awaited.
"We would send a copy of the report to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for their perusal," Kathuria said.
He said a significant demand for mainframes is expected in the country with the coming up of various e-Governance plans and UID project.
Mainframes are computers used mainly by large firms for critical applications, typically bulk data processing like consumer statistics and enterprise resource planning.
The agency said unbundling enterprise hardware and software instead of selling them as a single offering and interoperability of systems are some of the recommendations of the report.
The report also raised concerns over the attempts by IBM to tighten its hold on the Indian market by 'under pricing' its products, much lower than other markets. It said that similar steps had been taken by the company in the US and Europe as well.
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